supporting people in the vital work of changing their minds
"It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent; it is the species that is most responsive to change."
Get Leadership Notes by Email
Good morning from a dark and rather dreary Vancouver. I do love the Fall, but there is always a certain melancholy in me when many jurisdictions in this part of the world switch to Standard Time. It is dark by 5 pm, and still dark when my alarm goes off at 7 am. I wonder if some of you experience this shift in feeling? And after December 21 or 22, the local Winter Solstice I actually get a little excited about the lengthening days!
This has got me thinking about our personal impact on the environment of our workplaces. Now I know that there are thousands of articles and blogs about workplace environments, both physical and social, but what I’m wondering about is how I can impact the mood and therefore the longer term productivity of the place in which I work. For example, I’ve had the experience of working with people whom I’ve termed (perhaps unfairly) ‘black cloud’ people, based on my childhood memories of the L’il Abner comic strip character Joe ‘Btfspik.’ I recall working with a couple of tourists here in Vancouver who in the midst of a gorgeous summer weekend complained about how long the line ups were to get into the Sun Yat Sen Gardens, how hot it was, how the tour to Victoria was so slow because of the 90 minute ferry ride, they found no joy in the beaches, the mountains and even the shopping on Robson Street. I actually wondered why they had got on the plane to come here in the first place! I have experienced the negative side of mood in the workplace, and in my practice I’ve certainly come across people who see the world through perpetually dark glasses. And there is a wonderful book by the late Peter Frost called “Handling Toxic Emotions at Work” that explores how leaders and the rest of us have to deal with what he called ‘cancer cells’ in our organizations.
My wondering recently has been, what about the positive side? Are there actually people who bring light into our workplaces, who simply by their presence make the work place a better place for everyone. I think there are such people, and what I’ve noticed are a few common traits. One, there is a sincerity about their positivity; some folks will actually try too hard to be warm and happy and we pick up on the cracks in the veneer. The most sincere folks we warm to automatically. Second, there is a self-deprecating sense of humour about them; again, not false humility, but a light heartedness in how they view themselves and the world around them. Third, in my conversations with them they all talk about choice; they actually make a choice to view the world through the lens they do. A couple of Monday evenings ago I attended a symposium where I heard Rabbi Michael Lerner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lerner_(rabbi) speak. Towards of the evening he said something like, ‘look, there are loads of people out there who will keep telling us to be realistic, who will beat us down to the pragmatic and the doable. The problem is that being realistic, being pragmatic and doable means we won’t change, we won’t grow. So choose to be an idealist, revel in your idealism, and in doing so begin to change your neighbourhood, your city, your country and the world for the better.’
And you know what, I think these three characteristics are actually very powerful leadership qualities; sincere positivism, self-deprecating humour and making conscious choices, including the choice to imagine and work towards a better world for all of us.
May this week be filled with opportunities to explore each of these for each of us.
Good morning from a crisp and beautiful day in Vancouver, I hope you are able to enjoy at least a few moments of the outside world today. I was honoured to hear my friend Dixie Black speak on Sunday morning, http://www.cathedral.vancouver.bc.ca/2013/10/28/sermon-by-the-rev-dixie-black-october-27-2013/ . Dixie is a clinical counsellor who does amazing work with individuals and couples. Her reflection explores, among other things, ‘intention’.
I have wrestled for some time with the power of my ego. I sometimes refer to him as my 14 year old self, and boy oh boy, can he wreak havoc! I recognize that he can be very much like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/smeagol-gollum/images/14076899/title/gollum-smeagol-screencap That part of me can latch on to things and people who I find “precious”. And he is also the part of me that can step into the midst of a conference going bad and improvise to bring things back on course, raise the energy level and get people talking and engaged about the subjects at hand. I sometimes laugh with myself that I can do that because my 14 year old self is too dim to know how outrageous it is to stand in front of 100 people and have 3 hours to fill with little or no idea what I’ll be doing 20 minutes from now! I know though that that part of me is a great gift.
Dixie, using spiritual language and referencing the great thinker Richard Rohr https://cac.org/ , gave me a great insight on Sunday. Full health is not in the absence of our dark side, it is found in the turning of the dark side to our own individual and collective favour. What a great reminder to us as leaders; we are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but rather than trying to hide from our Gollums, what does it look like to use them to our benefit and the benefit of our organization. So, I have an ego the size of a Mack truck, and I can use that part of me to step into group situations with confidence and humour. Sure, my Gollum is doing a little dance inside of me saying “they like me, they really like me”, but the bigger and more important work of collaboration, dialogue and reflection for and in the group is what is actually happening. I’ve found a way to take the dark side of my Gollum and turn it to individual and collective favour, by being really clear with myself about my intention. Yes my Gollum is getting praise, which he craves, but my deeper intention is to create a safe and healthy place for the group to work in. And it is that upon which I focus my intention. I wonder what your “Gollum” is, and how might you turn his/her cravings towards the individual and collective good?
May this week be one of such discovery for each of us.
Good morning from a foggy Vancouver Airport. Flights are delayed and so the Air Canada Lounge is packed to the rafters. Like me, there are a few people sniffling and coughing with colds, and there are lots of phone calls advising people in other cities of delays and travel challenges. There are aircraft taking off and landing though, so we will all be moving eventually.
I note that there is a certain temptation to use the now often used phrase “first world problem” to dismiss such challenges. And there is truth to that; quite frankly any day I do not have to walk ten kilometers to get fresh water is a good day in my book. There is a certain irony to people in the 1st world getting very upset about air travel for example; simply the fact that the system works most of the time is amazing, and I am grateful for the people who work hard to make my air travel so relatively easy. And that said, problems and challenges are still problems and challenges, regardless of where we reside on this beautiful planet!
I have had conversations in the last 2 hours with people who are facing life threatening physical and mental illnesses, people upon whom hundreds of others are depending on to be at a certain place at a certain time, and people who have been yelled at because of weather delays beyond the scope of their responsibilities. The key to successfully navigating these kinds of issues is in our response.
A fundamental part of successful leadership is self-awareness, knowing enough about myself to be able to make choices about my emotional responses. My fear, or anger, or frustration may well rise up in reaction to particular news, a change to the expected schedule or to another’s emotional outburst, but the key is to respond to these situations, not to react. I find that time for quiet contemplation (meditation, prayer, call it what you will), and physical activity are foundation building blocks for my ability to respond and not simply react. And it is in the contemplation that I learn more about myself. For example, I’ve learned by asking myself regularly, what have I learned today, that when I am tired and worn out, I’m much more likely to lash out at another person. Or I’ve learned by asking myself where did I mess up today, that I will be frustrated by an inanimate object when there is something I’m not dealing with in myself or in my relationships; so the baggage delivery system on arrival at an airport is “stupid” or a “waste of time” when in fact I’m actually frustrated with my own behaviour on a personal level. That’s just me, there will different ones for each of us. And so the more you know about yourself, the more likely you’ll be able to weather the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’.
May this week be filled with learning opportunities for ourselves.
Happy Thanksgiving to all our Canadian correspondents. This is an ancient tradition, predating what our American cousins called "Thanksgiving" where according to the legend, the 'first' Europeans were so thankful to have arrived on the shores of what they were to eventually call the United States they sat down to share a meal with the indigenous people they met and thanked God for delivering them from the religious terrors of England. In actual fact, the act of thanksgiving has been a fundamental part of community living likely from the very first Homo Sapiens about 100,000 years ago, and may even have been part of Neanderthal community as well. Thanking and being thanked may in fact be one of the deepest cravings of the human species. And this time of year, in the Northern Hemisphere would of course be, for the emerging (10,000 - 15,000 BCE) agricultural communities of Homo Sapiens, the time of the harvest. In parts of Canada we still call this holiday Harvest Thanksgiving.
For leaders, gratitude is absolutely vital. Did you know for example that one of the key motivating factors for employees is sincere thanks for a job well done? One of my favourite stories about gratitude involves the my boss in churchland, the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral here in Vancouver, The Very Rev. Dr. Peter Elliott. I was leaving my cathedral office for the day, and poked my nose into his office to say 'so long'. I said with a grin, "my work here is done!" He replied with his own grin and without missing a beat, "not by a long shot!" In that quick moment, a moment I'm not even sure he would remember, I felt affirmed and thanked and it frankly made me want to come back and work some more. And for those who don't know I am non-stipendiary clergy, I'm not paid to be there. I show up there and am productive while I'm there at least in part because of my relationship with my immediate supervisor, http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/01/18/why-are-so-many-employees-disengaged/ And one of the key reasons Peter is successful as a manager is that he understands gratitude.
So in the midst of our thanksgiving this weekend, I wonder whom have you thanked recently? Do you thank the people with whom you work regularly? Are you thanked regularly by your boss?
I have the immense pleasure of working with groups on a weekly, and sometimes even a daily basis. I have spoken to or facilitated three separate groups this week alone. And at the end of each session, the group has given me and our work a round of applause. I keep thinking, what would it be like to have workplaces where people were applauded as often as I am in my work! I think it would be rather wonderful frankly!
And so to all of you, where ever you are in the world, Happy Thanksgiving, and may it continue throughout the year!
Good morning from an absolutely lovely Vancouver. I’ve been driving with the top down on the convertible this weekend; wrapped in a scarf, but still! And today is no different. My adventures today will involve a little bit of driving and the top will be down still, and it is mid-October! For those of you who are not resident in Canada, there is nothing quite like a beautiful Fall day as we know that the rain (or the snow in other parts) is coming, and will be with us for some months. Having lunch with a friend on Sunday, who said that this time of year she is always hungry, and wondered if it was a deep biological memory of storing up fat for the long winter ahead! Whether or not that is physiologically true, it is symbolic of the changes inherent this time of year.
Our business cycles are often simply mirroring the natural world, I am always busier in the fall than in the mid-winter of January for example. (I wonder if that is the case in reverse in the Southern hemisphere?) And paradoxically, our business cycles are in actual fact mechanistic systems that often twist away from if not interfere with the natural rhythms of life. An easy example is what happens in day long meetings after lunch; how often have you sat in a meeting listening to yet another boring speaker after lunch? The poor sod scheduled to speak then might in fact have some great content but our biological response to lunch is often to snooze; s/he is up against nature in that meeting room and is pushing a very large rock up a very large hill!
One of the things I’ve learned this weekend is the power of simple and easy. And the simple and easy feel more often than not ‘natural.’ I don’t mean that we avoid challenges, rather that we recognize them for what they are, simply challenges. Rather than fighting against them, we might ask ourselves, ‘what am I supposed to be learning here?’ and/or, ‘is this challenge, or are parts of this challenge my own making?’ And once we can look at them through that lens, a lens that allows us to ‘let go’ we can find new and perhaps easier ways through the challenge. Then, we will find that the universe actually opens up to the simple and easy.
So, instead of building an agenda that has the VP of Finance give a quarterly up date, or a short talk on derivatives after lunch, build in some time (15 minutes after lunch) for meeting participants to go outside for some fresh air for 15 minutes. I’m learning to say “if you’re checking messages, do it outside”. Or, have the first item on the agenda after lunch be a dialogue amongst the participants exploring a material question. Simple and easy. And once our natural rhythms have brought us back to full alertness, then the VP of Finance can shine.
May this week be a week of simple and easy in many parts of our lives.
Good afternoon from a cold and damp Vancouver! I hope that this edition of Leadership Notes finds you well!
As I mentioned in mid July, I’ve been reading the explorations of a group of thinkers at the Neuro-leadership Institute, http://www.neuroleadership.org/index.shtml One of the most intriguing observations of the study of our brains is that the idea of a “rational person” is in fact fantasy. We make our decisions based on our emotions and then use the rational parts of our brains to explain our decisions to ourselves. This has some profound implications for us as leaders.
You’ll hear for example from some of us in leadership positions lines like, “let’s remove the emotional and look at this rationally to make our decision”, or even, “it’s not personal, it’s business.” It appears in fact that that is not as easy as we might like to think! (pardon the pun) That is not to say that we are not able to analyze, integrate, reflect, ponder and consider when we make decisions, but that we appear to make decisions based on our emotional response, and then do the analysis later. As I’ve been reflecting on this data, I think there are at least 3 techniques we can use to increase the quality of our decisions.
1. Recognize that my initial decision is most likely emotional, and will be based on a tapestry of triggers and complexes that I will often not even be conscious of. As much as possible as a leader, be wary of quick, in the moment big or material decisions, rather, ensure that you give yourself time to reflect, and even to sleep on the decision.
2. Ask yourself during this reflection time big and even ambiguous questions like; what do I need? What do others need? What does the organization/team need? What is the crossroads here? What are the possibilities here? What are the pros and cons? What do our organization/team values say?
3. Don’t be afraid to ‘change your mind.’ Changing your mind is often related to learning. If you realize that a decision made in the heat of the moment was not the right one, ‘get over yourself’ and change your mind. Your team will appreciate it, and so will you.
May this week be one where each of us gets to reflect and learn, then make a decision.
If you appreciated this edition of Leadership Notes, feel free to forward it, or invite your friends to email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to register.
Alisdair